


pretty guardians of a queer time and space

by burnoutchampion



Category: Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon, Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon | Pretty Guardian Sailor Moon (Anime & Manga)
Genre: Adolescent Sexuality, Canon Lesbian Relationship, Essays, F/F, F/M, Gen, Multi, Nonbinary Character, Nonfiction, Queer Culture, Queer Families, Queer Themes, Time Loop, Time Travel
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-12-12
Updated: 2019-12-12
Packaged: 2021-02-26 04:48:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,732
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21767857
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/burnoutchampion/pseuds/burnoutchampion
Summary: Written by Jess Cockerill.Notions of queer time and family are implied in Naoko Takeuchi's 'Bishoujo Senshi Sailor Moon'. Jess Cockerill explores these concepts - as they were described by theorist Jack Halberstam - in this piece of fictocriticism, first published in print by Voiceworks for the 'Pluto' issue (116) in September 2019.
Relationships: Chibiusa/Helios, Chibiusa/Tomoe Hotaru, Kaiou Michiru/Tenoh Haruka, Meiou Setsuna/Queen Serenity
Comments: 1
Kudos: 28





	pretty guardians of a queer time and space

Naoko Takeuchi's _Sailor Moon_ endures within queer fan and meme cultures. It might be remembered more for the flutter of miniskirts, but _Sailor Moon_ is more than just fan service: it is a complex, non-linear narrative driven by time travel that in many ways redefined the shoujo (girl) manga genre. From the early to mid-1900s shoujo espoused ideals of womanhood based on both Japanese and Western notions of what it meant to be a 'proper' (heteronormative, reproductive) young lady, and was usually created by male artists/writers.

Instead, Takeuchi's series – which began as a manga in 1991 and was adapted to anime in 1992 – set out to empower young women as active participants in peacekeeping, environmentalism, humanitarian causes, and their own romantic lives.

Young girls, traditionally, do not go out at night; they do not jump from rooftops or cause infrastructural damage. In shoujo the life of a 'proper' schoolgirl means studying, spending time with family, admiring boys from afar, idolising pop stars, and shopping. We see this normative characterisation in the daylight scenes of _Sailor Moon_ , especially prior to the senshi's 'awakening' (senshi meaning 'guardian' or 'soldier').

On the other hand, night-time has usually been relegated as the real of evil – unwholesome, adult and dangerous – and not the domain of innocent schoolgirls. But the Sailor Senshi operate outside normative space and time. Transformed into galactic knights, they fight evil on the roofs of skyscrapers, in parks and on the deserted roadways of their sleeping city. They are reincarnated through eras across the series. You could say they occupy what theorist Jack Halberstam calls 'queer time'.

What does Einstein's theory of relativity have to do with queerness? Well, in 1905 he predicted that one could test his theory experimentally using two atomic clocks, with their time set to match. Put as simply as possible, if these two clocks were set to travel at different speeds through space they would, upon their reunion, have fallen out of sync. While the translation of pop science into broader public understanding isn't always perfect, it seemed that if an atomic clock could take a different trajectory to its twin, so too could a person. After Einstein's experiment, it seemed that time could no longer govern us uniformly. The idea that time could be subjective resonated particularly with postmodern thinkers of the day, and queer lifestyles emerging in the 20th century. Young queer people were (and sadly, often still are) kicked out of home by their birth families, causing a break in biological lineages. The AIDS epidemic shortened lifespans: queer relationships burnt bright and fast. Queer folks renamed themselves on their own terms, awakening new identities and communities based in nurture, rather than nature. 

'All kinds of people, especially in postmodernity, will and do opt to live outside of reproductive and familial time as well as on the edges of logics of labour and production,' Jack Halberstam writes. 'They live (deliberately, accidentally, or out of necessity) during the hours when others sleep, and in the spaces (physical, metaphysical and economic) that others have abandoned.' The heteronormative sequences of birth, childhood, adolescence, career, adulthood, marriage, child-rearing and death do not make sense to everyone.

The influx of non-male mangaka (manga artists) like Takeuchi into the industry late-20th century meant depictions of women and queer folk became broader than the hetero-patriarchal narratives that once dominated: hence, _Sailor Moon._ Paul Gravett echoed Halberstam's sentiment while writing about shoujo in the 2004 book _Manga: Sixty Years of Japanese Comics:_

> What [shoujo] frequently have in common is their enlightening fictions about the pressures and pleasures of individuals living life in their own way and, for better or worse, not always as society expects. The search for love is still a pervasive theme, but many women mangaka have transcended the simple-minded romanticism and boy-meets-girl conformity. 

*******

**Michiru (Neptune)**

_But Haruka, this is her chance to start over. To have some peace at last._

_I know you mean well, Michiru. But it's beyond us to give Hotaru a normal life. It's just not possible. If she goes to school she'll stick out like a sore thumb, she'll be jumping grades each week. Plus, it's a waste of her power._

I wonder when Haruka became the pragmatist. It would be too petty of me to remind them of their own hesitations in accepting their fate as a guardian. I knew, when I first went after them, that it would change their life forever. Once we accepted the life of a guardian we could not turn back.

_Do you want her to suffer again? To doom her like that?_

_Doom? Is this doom? To find alongside me, alongside us?_

I thought so, once. Haruka didn't want to join me at first, and I would've let them go. They might've been a champion race car driver, competing in the Formula 1. And me – a concertmaster? Composer? None of that matters now.

_Michiru, it's her destiny, and it's ours too. No matter what we do, we will always return here._

Haruka is slouched over their laptop, sleeves rolled up, suit jacket slung haphazardly over the back of their chair. They run their hands through their cropped hair, but it flops back over their eyes again. They look older now, more weary than the bold and cheeky racer they were when we met, but still so handsome. I walk up behind them and squeeze their broad shoulders. They sigh.

_Well... is there room in this destiny for dessert? Crepes, maybe?_

Haruka laughs and shakes their head.

_Yeah, alright. I guess even magical girls need dessert. Go get Hotaru, I'll start the car._

***

The outer senshi – Uranus, Neptune, Saturn and Pluto – are all individually far more powerful than their inner senshi comrades (the five schoolgirl protagonists of the series). Uranus and Neptune are the Sapphic poster-girls of _Sailor Moon_ , controversially (and unconvincingly) censored in the American dub as cousins. Uranus in particular resists gender specificity, and I've no doubt that if Takeuchi wrote the manga in 2019 she would be non-binary. Neptune, meanwhile, is an archetypal femme: motherly, musical and wise.

While homosexual pairings abound in shoujo, they rarely endure. Those less familiar with anime may mistake the prevalence of queer relationships for a kind of progressiveness, without noticing these pairings most often arise for comedic, tragic and/or fetishistic effect. But Uranus and Neptune are a welcome exception in the genre. Arguably, theirs is the only truly stable relationship in the entire series (heterosexual pairings included), subverting assumptions that even Halberstam's theories of queer time reinforce, about a volatility inherent in queer relationships.

However, as Catherine Bailey writers in 'Prince Charming By Day, Superheroine by Night? Subversive Sexualities and Gender Fluidity in _Revolutionary Girl Utena_ and _Sailor Moon_ ', the Haru/Michi pairing is long-term and sustainable:

> None of their comrades judge them on the basis of their relationship; in fact, in the [Japanese] manga, it nearly goes unnoticed.

Perhaps this air of stability is Takeuchi's attempt to make their union more palatable to conservative audiences, just as she designed their appearances as man/woman. Regardless, the couple helped normalise queer relationships for a generation, and showed a queer trajectory need not be impotent or fleeting.

***

**Hotaru (Saturn)**

At night, I lie awake. My sleepless legs are screaming. Mummy says it's growing pains, I toss and turn and stretch and still they ache and ache and ache. Daddy showed me stretches, I try them again. Brief relief, 'til I lie back down. I don't know what is happening to me, it's happening too fast.

When I sleep my muscles soften by my mind reels instead. Squirming shadows become solid: tentacles, vines, archways, galaxies. I know they were real once – but I can't remember. Maybe this writhing darkness is hair. Serpents, dark rivers, they reach towards me, wrap around me. They mould my body into being, bring to life organs I never knew.

I am started, and I wake. But I am not alone. Someone is at the foot of my bed. They have my face, my body. They hold a staff with a violent hook on its end.

 _Who are you_. She smiles and moves forward, she is drifting, she does not walk.

 _I am Sailor Saturn. Your protector._ Her gloved hand reaches to my forehead, touching lightly between my eyes.

_The time is approaching. Now is the time to awaken._

And light floods in.

The shadows in my mind recede like worms out in the sun. And there, left in the light, is my pink-haired lady. My heart swells. She is smiling, she twirls and gives me rice cakes, she pulls me through the garden by the hand. _Chibiusa._ And then... she turns away. A white horse gallops towards her, she runs to greet him. He is a man with long white hair. As he embraces her, she grows into a woman. Still in his embrace, she turns to look at me, sneering. And laughs.

***

Queerness defies traditional age structures, and this is embraced by the same subcultures that _Sailor Moon_ fans occupy. 21st-century queerness has incubated on Deviantart, Tumblr, Grindr, Discord chatrooms and AO3, spaces which are simultaneously public and private, which disregard time zones and life stages, corporate ownership and capital accumulation, and allow identity to be explored through fanfiction, fan art, and the self-determination enabled by online aliases.

What it means to be an adult in queer time is very different to heteronormative notions that rely on career, reproduction and stability. People who have lived their entire lives in the closet, for instance, come out and encounter a new adolescence late in life. Trans friends have described to me multiple puberties, as they undergo new hormone therapies, or learn new aspects of their queerness. As a bisexual person, I experience frustrating iterations of ‘coming out’ every time I engage in a homosexual relationship after a period of time incognito.

Hetero milestones based on linear sequence and stability essentially mean a queer person cannot be seen to truly ‘grow up’. This may explain why the ‘im baby’ meme—which shows the gender defiant hyper-chibi Kirby peacefully pointing to the token phrase on a whiteboard—resonated so much with millennial queers. Though animation has never been exclusively G-rated, it is widely deemed a children’s media, and the popularity of _Sailor Moon_ among queer fan cultures (along with other cute animated figures, like Kirby, Pokémon, and the characters from _Steven Universe_ and _Adventure Time_ ) may be seen as a proud refusal to comply with hetero-time.

In _Sailor Moon_ the age hierarchy is discarded, where schoolgirls are the Earth’s only hope, and where the youngest senshi, Sailor Saturn, is the most powerful of all. After realising her identity as Sailor Saturn in _Sailor Moon Super S_ she literally ends time using her OP Silence Glaive, and is killed in the process, before being reborn as an infant in _Sailor Moon: Sailor Stars_. Sailor Pluto retrieves the baby Hotaru and raises her with Sailor Uranus and Neptune.

Hotaru refers to her new family as ‘Haruka-daddy’ (Uranus), ‘Michiro-mummy’ (Neptune) and ‘Setsuna-mummy’ (Pluto). For a brief moment, this little group has all the markers of a successful 1980s family: Uranus drives a slick sports car; Neptune dons a motherly lilac suit; Pluto home-schools Hotaru in the poetry of Bashō. But the family these guardians form is decidedly queer, with three women parents raising a child who is not biologically theirs, and who will—like one of Einstein’s clocks through space—overtake them all, in intellect, power and chronology, awakening as a senshi and growing to her adolescent form within days of her rebirth.

***

**Setsuna (Pluto)**

_Pluto, you must listen carefully._ Queen Serenity’s regal voice, usually so resonant, fell dead into the void around us.

_Pluto, I need you to uphold these rules. The galaxy depends on your guardianship._

An iron door loomed over us. Set into its panels were each phase of the moon—her icon, and her mother’s icon, and all before them. And around it, blank space. Eternity. Silence. My new home.

_Firstly, you must never open this door. You must stand watch at all times._

Her silver eyes held mine, pleading.

_You will not leave this post. You are its guardian now. Do you understand?_

_Yes, I understand._ Don’t choke.

_And Pluto. You are the only one who can stop time. But—it is up to you to keep its flow. So, you will stay here, and you will not use this power. Understood?_

_Yes._

I grasped firmly the silver rod she had bestowed on me. I could not let her see my hands shake. Could not let my voice waver. She looked so serious, so tired. The burden of her reign had taken its toll. Her pale face, once bright and lunar, had become worn with time. She placed her hand on mine.

 _Setsuna_ … She moved closer to me.

I straightened up and cleared my throat, a soldier, a guardian. And jerked away. She wiped her eyes, hurt.

 _Queen Serenity. I will follow these orders, as you command. Please, be at rest. Your family needs you. Let me begin my duty._ I couldn’t stand to see her any longer. How could she do it? How could she leave me here? Her king has her love for eternity. And I have this.

 _My duty is to you and your descendants and I will honour that for all of time. Please, let me begin now._ I turned my back and moved to take up my post beside the door.

_Pluto, please forgive me. Setsuna. Please, you know I need you to do this. You know you’re the only one. I don’t want it to be this way…_

I stayed silent.

_Pluto. I’m so sorry._

I was a statue, then. And my heart became stone. She returned to the Silver Millennium, and from here I watched her grow old, watched her daughters grow old. Life moves slowly outside of the gates of time. Love stagnates.

***

Sailor Pluto is the loneliest of the guardians. In the Silver Millennium, a prehistoric time the senshi originated from, all the others inhabit the Moon Kingdom, but, as the daughter of Chronos and guardian of time, Pluto stands solitary in liminal time/space. Pluto reminds me of those people Halberstam described: she quite literally lives ‘outside of reproductive and familial time.’ She reminds me of anyone with a uterus who cannot bear children, or who chooses not to bear children.

‘Obviously, not all people who have children keep or even are able to keep reproductive time, but many and possibly most people believe that the scheduling of repro-time is natural and desirable,’ Halberstam writes. It’s this unwillingness or inability to keep ‘repro-time’ that has majorly impacted queer politics: think transition procedures, think marriage laws, think adoption policies, think the whole ‘a kid needs a mum and a dad’ presumption. Regardless of a person’s contributions to the community, there is prejudice against those who do not conform to the hetero-schedules our bodies have long been mapped against.

Despite her solitude, Pluto has always seemed to me a kind of matriarch among the senshi: she is older (and much taller) than all the other guardians; she is strict and stoic. She gives warnings, knowledge, guidance and aid where needed. She is particularly sympathetic towards the younger guardians, Chibiusa and Sailor Saturn, for whom she shows a softness. And so she represents an alternative motherhood: one that is not based in biology but reflects notions of a ‘chosen family’. The biological essentialist notion of ‘family = blood relation’ is subverted by the material practice of reproduction for many queer people.

Halberstam’s queer time is constructed ‘in opposition to family, heterosexuality, and reproduction’, which is understandable in the context of 20th century queerness, where family meant blood relation or hetero marriage, and where the domestic space was (and for many, still is) paradoxically unsafe. Yet, Takeuchi’s outer senshi show it is possible to form a family that is defined more by shared experience and loyalty to each other on this basis, re-imagining domestic life on their own terms. In the future of Crystal Tokyo, normative and queer life cycles and family structures are in harmony. The relativity of time, space and identity is embraced, and the senshi are stronger for it.

**Jess Cockerill (24) is notoriously bad at being on time for anything and writes at the intersection of science, culture and technology.**


End file.
